College Librarian: Mr T Clarke, BA, PGDipEd, TECFÉE
Full-time Professional Librarian: Mrs Jean Kent Sutton, MA, PGDipILS, MCLIP.
The College Library is housed in a wonderful building, designed by Old Columban architect John Somerville-Large, which opened in 1994. Situated in the Warden’s Garden, at the heart of the College, the Library provides pupils and staff with a spacious and beautiful facility for study and reading. The building itself consists of the Senior and Junior Reading Rooms on either side of the central Main Library. A separate room, the ‘Submarine’, is available for classes, personal tuition and meetings (such as for the Book Club). The ‘Submarine’ is also the Careers & Guidance Centre. Currently we have over 10,000 books on our shelves, both fiction and non-fiction, as well as audio-visual material, journals and magazines. There is high-speed wi-fi connected to the College network. Our catalogue is fully computerised, and we operate a self-issue system.
The Library is open under staff supervision, apart from brief breaks, from the beginning of the school day to late in the evening – for over 80 hours a week. Pupils use it during class time, in their free time, and for prep in the evenings. It is constantly in demand both as a place of serious study, and as a haven from the busy pace of boarding school life.
We are generously funded, and as an integral part of academic study in the College, we constantly update our non-fiction resources both on our own initiative, and in consultation with teaching staff. We are equally committed to fiction’the Library sustains a real and vibrant reading culture in the College.
The College believes in the continuing importance of books and reading in the 21st century. At the same time we recognise the evolving nature of information, the importance it will hold in the lives of this and future generations, and the role we have, as educators, in teaching our students new methods and responsibilities to avail of it effectively.
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